After being out for nearly a year on PC as a beta you'd think Xbox 360 gamers would have given up ever seeing a new campaign for L4D2 on their beloved console. But Valve is not one to make people wait any longer than they have to! /s

According to the L4D Blog, come July 24th, 360 gamers will finally get their hands on the "Cold Stream" campaign that has been in beta testing for PC and Mac users since March 2011. The DLC also brings with it updated versions of all the maps from the original Left 4 Dead, just to sweeten the pot.

Valve is also promising some "surprise" updates for all platforms so look forward to that as well. Hell, I might even jump back into L4D on PC if that wasn't the same week Dawnguard was coming out.

So, if you can round up three friends and an Xbox 360, you too can now experience the Left 4 Dead franchise in all it's gory glory.

Despite some vague-ish comments from Valve that this wasn't the case, a video turned up on the Payday: The Heist YouTube channel indicating that Valve is working in some capacity with PayDay developers Overkill on something called No Mercy, which will explore the origins of the zombie virus from Left 4 Dead. The video was quickly pulled from the channel, but was then grabbed by IGN and subsequently posted to youtube by several other users.

Update: Valve's Chet Faliszek has emailed us, saying that the YouTube video isn't a prequel, that it was "just some over-excited marketing guys."

"This is a 100% Overkill made mission for Payday: Heist simply set in no mercy hospital from the Left 4 Dead series. It is not telling the origins of the Infection and is not canon. There is a little cameo from one of the L4D characters (the comic should give you a hint) and a fun little easter egg with a payoff later in Left 4 Dead. Just us having some fun with a studio we are friends with and who have also made a great co-op game."

Before it was pulled, the YouTube description said, "Have you ever wondered how the Left 4 Dead series began? It started with a heist!" The level looks like a heist gone wrong (or at least, gone violent), and before long things have gotten hairy. Left 4 Dead flashlight-shooting ensues, and I gotta say it's weird to see the things at the other end of the flashlight beams shooting back.

Despite some vague-ish comments from Valve that this wasn't the case, a video turned up on the Payday: The Heist YouTube channel indicating that Valve is working in some capacity with PayDay developers Overkill on something called No Mercy, which will explore the origins of the zombie virus from Left 4 Dead. The video was quickly pulled from the channel, but was then grabbed by IGN and subsequently posted to youtube by several other users.

Update: Valve's Chet Faliszek has emailed us, saying that the YouTube video isn't a prequel, that it was "just some over-excited marketing guys."

"This is a 100% Overkill made mission for Payday: Heist simply set in no mercy hospital from the Left 4 Dead series. It is not telling the origins of the Infection and is not canon. There is a little cameo from one of the L4D characters (the comic should give you a hint) and a fun little easter egg with a payoff later in Left 4 Dead. Just us having some fun with a studio we are friends with and who have also made a great co-op game."

Before it was pulled, the YouTube description said, "Have you ever wondered how the Left 4 Dead series began? It started with a heist!" The level looks like a heist gone wrong (or at least, gone violent), and before long things have gotten hairy. Left 4 Dead flashlight-shooting ensues, and I gotta say it's weird to see the things at the other end of the flashlight beams shooting back.

"We're trying to be a little coy and a little fun because we want the communities to discover it," Valve' Chet Falisek told PCGamesN, "but those guys are still making Payday: The Heist, we're still making Left 4 Dead."

Specifically, he says the collaboration "is kind of akin to how in TF2 you might see some other games' weapons get translated and put into that game. We're doing something similar to that, but it's a little bit more involved."

According to a report on CVG, Overkill Entertainment - developers of multiplayer shooter Payday: The Heist - are currently working on a new Left 4 Dead title.

While some kind of crossover title was announced between the pair last month, this report is a little more specific, claiming that the new game is a Left 4 Dead prequel that tells the story of how the zombie outbreak came to kill, well, almost everybody.

Last night, I had a chance to play OverRun mode, the great-looking new versus multiplayer in Gears of War: Judgment. Today, I sat down with Epic's Cliff Bleszinski and People Can Fly's Adrian Chmielarz to hear the first details about its single-player campaign.

There are a number of substantial-sounding tweaks to gameplay, all of which will result in a harder-core (and just plain harder) single-player game.

For starters, there's something that Chmielarz called "S3," or the smart spawn system. It sounds more or less like Left 4 Dead's AI director—based on how you're doing in the campaign, the game will change the flow of the game, sometimes dramatically.

If you're doing well, more and more difficult enemies will spawn in different locations, pushing you harder; if you're doing poorly, the game will ease up. This all happens relative to the difficulty that you've chosen at the outset—if you're playing on casual, it won't get too hard.

The idea is to promote replayability, since as Bleszinski pointed out, many people thought that Gears 3 was a short game even though it was technically their longest. That's because it was a bit too easy, in his opinion. The goal with Gears of War: Judgment is to give players something much more difficult.

The other big change is something called the "Declassification System," which is a smart bit of shiftiness built into the game's story. Which, as we already knew, is a prequel that will star the series' up-till-now second bananas Baird and Cole Train over a decade before the events of the first three Gears game. Bleszinski described Judgment as taking place slightly after Emergence Day—to put it in game terms, he called it "Emergence Day's launch window."

(Of course, I asked if Emergence Day had day-one DLC. Bleszinski declined to comment. Heh.)

"There's more game in this game than previously."

See, Gears of War: Judgment is a "frame narrative"—the entire story is testimony given at Baird, Cole, and the rest of Kilo Squad's trial for treason. We're not sure what events led to them being disgraced as they have been, and we'll find out over the course of the game.

The flashbacks won't be reliable, however—at least, not 100%. Sometimes, Baird and company will remember things "wrong," and eventually you'll get a "declassified" version of each mission to play. Sometimes that'll mean that you have weapon restrictions, or that the setting or number of enemies are different. Other times it sounds like the implications could be more dramatic, though we didn't get into the details of what that might mean, exactly.

This is all laying the groundwork for a nifty bit of storytelling, though I must say I was a bit bummed to hear about another feature that allows players to "unlock" power-ups and weapons that are fuzzy because they "can't be remembered." But if you spend points, you'll remember them!

I don't quite know why this idea turns me off—after all, having different power-ups will make the levels feel different. But something about it seems silly? We'll see how it looks in the final game.

Most of what I heard about Gears of War: Judgment sounds as though the game will be much faster-paced, brutal, dynamic and difficult than its predecessors.

"There's more game in this game than previously," said Chmielarz.

With the game slated for a 2013 release, we will doubtless see more of the single-player game in the not-too-distant future. Regardless, what Chmielarz and Bleszinski are talking about aren't merely cosmetic changes—these will likely substantially change the feel of Gears.

The action-packed brand of high-stakes robbery delivered by Overkill Software's Payday: The Heist might just be pulling off its next job in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Early this morning, an official statement from Overkill game director Ulf Andersson revealed that the Swedish development team will be working on an "in-depth collaboration" with Valve:

"As perceptive gamers will have noticed, several hints have recently been dropped into PAYDAY The Heist, which has led to various rumors. We are excited to be able to confirm that an in-depth collaboration between OVERKILL and Valve is currently in production.

We are working on a very cool blend of PAYDAY and Left 4 Dead. I am sure it is so exciting that it will have some players check into the hospital before we are done."

It was recently announced that dev studio Starbreeze—makers of this year's Syndicate reboot and the Chronicles of Riddick games—would be acquiring Overkill in a bid to grow their intellectual property portfolio. Originally a PlayStation Network exclusive, Payday is also now available on Steam. Payday debuted on the PlayStation Network and then became available on Steam soon thereafter. No word on when we might expect to see the first look at a Payday/L4D crossover but zombies vs. Bank Thieves… that could actually be fun.

The all-white, incredibly temperamental witch of Left 4 Dead fame is terrifying.

She often feels unavoidable, especially if you're playing online with hyperactive, trigger-happy teammates. The echoes of her haunting cries still terrorize my dreams occasionally. (Seriously, I play *that* much Left 4 Dead.)

She's a little less threatening in these cosplay images, though. At least while she's stuck in the frame and not chasing wildly after you. Does someone have a molotov handy just in case?